Suffering terribly from jet-lag I woke up at 4:30 AM and decided I had better copy all my trip photos from my portable hard drive to my PC.

Of course, to my horror, the PC showed NO DISK in portable hard drive. I rebooted both devices repeatedly to no avail.

Before committing suicide, I decided to try one last effort. Thinking perhaps that the vibration of the trip had loosened the disk connector - or rather hoping it had - I took apart the case of the PHD, took out the internal drive and reseated it - AND IT READ.

It is now copying file 1280 of 2865 raw files to my PC.

I amweak from the experience - but relieved that I have actually taken the thing apart. Now I will look for additional hard drive for portable so I can actually have redundant backup on any trip.

As a side note, due to horrible weather in Chicago, my trip back from SEA turned from 26 hour marathon into 44 hour torture.

A baci ceremony is such a charming Lao institution that it deserves mention here, although the presence of symbolic foods are only one aspect of it, albeit an important one. Eggs are the principal symbolic foods used, but rice is almost always in evidence also.
A baci is a highly informal ceremony which may be held to mark any important occasion, such as a birthday, a wedding, the start or conclusion of a major journey (e.g. if someone is going abroad) or for greeting a distinguished visitor. It represents a mixture of Buddhism and spirit worship; and the person officiating may accordingly be either a monk or a 'magic-man'. In either event the centrepiece is a 'tree' which is usually made from banana leaves and flowers but may be composed of artificial materials. Symbolic foods surround it. The monk or 'magic-man' intones prayers and benedictions appropriate to the particular occasion. Then, after the person being honoured has had some symbolic food placed in his hand, white cotton strings are tied round his or her wrists, to the accompaniment of further benedictions. After this, all the participants, who have been sitting round the 'tree', are allowed to tie more strings around his or her wrists, while expressing their own specific good wishes; and are also permitted to tie strings around each other's wrists, so that the whole affair develops into a free-for-all from which everyone emerges with at least some strings. These strings must never be cut, and should not be removed for three days. Many people leave them on for longer, to be on the safe side; some indeed until they finally disintegrate months later.

I can somewhat relate. I recently returned from a trip to Tobago in the Caribbean. I took close to 500 pictures which also stored on a portable drive. Many of those pictures were of the guesthouse we stayed at and the owner, whose photos I was taking to offset the price of accommodation.

Of course, on my return to Canada, the airline lost my luggage. I didn't have the portable drive in the last bag, but it's charger was in there. I guess I could have eventually bought a charger that fit it, but luckily my bag was found and shipped to me.

I am just know opening and editing photos so there will be some posted soon.